clarity not serenity
by stanzas
Summary: clear, clear like a calm summer day, the truth is clear and she wonders why it still bothers her. / pjoshipweeks ;; week one: thalialuke


/ clear, clear like a calm summer day, the truth is clear and she wonders why it still bothers her.

_**a/n**_- yay another year of pjoshipweeks wwwweeeeee~~ only one more year after this and then it's all over :c oh well. I really hope my writing has improved since last year -insert shudder- so i'll be participating in all pjoshipweeks this year once again yay  
that's about it enjoy and review i guess idk c:

this week: thalia / luke

* * *

_**clarity not serenity**_

.

.

.

_don't take my dream from me, let me dream sweetly_  
_the nightmares come, don't take them, they remind me of you_  
_somehow it keeps me living_

_._

.

.

Her memories of being a tree were dim. Sometimes she'd feel them, remember the stiffness of her branches, and the occasional shiver of breeze that rustled through the leaves and the roughness of the bark around her. Even as a common pine tree she had felt other things around her. The presence of people, occasionally. She'd feel them run their hands down her bark or lean against her for a spring picnic, sometimes they would talk to her, but she could never hear them. She was just a tree. A sleeping tree, someone lost to the world beneath the branches and the roots and underground. That was okay, though. She might have been just a tree, but she remembered what she died for, and that was good enough for her.

.

.

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_I woke up one day and realized what is living_, _now I'm in a new life and it's all brand new_  
_you've changed since I last met you_  
_but now I just hope you're forgiving_

.

.

.

When she woke up she was confused. How was she alive? Why did Annabeth look so...grown up? Who were these people in orange shirts, holding swords and spears and looking completely terrified to see her. And then the one boy in front, with dark black hair and deep sea green eyes who was looking at the rest of them like they'd lost their minds. He asked her if she was okay and she felt unsure, like she'd seen him in her dreams while being under...

"I'm Thalia," she said when he asked her name. "Daughter of Zeus."

.

.

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_give me a new dream, this one is poisoned and unclean  
I'm living a new life but I keep bleeding_  
_it's only a matter of time before I'm all bled out_  
_take me home, make me free_

_._

_._

_._

She doesn't want to believe them, the honest truth in front of her, Annabeth's grey pleading eyes to understand, how she doesn't want to believe it either, and the boy next to her glaring with adamant finality that Luke is evil and there is nothing she can do to change that.

"But Luke, he would never..." she doesn't even know how to start, how is she supposed to understand that her best friend (or maybe more) would have gone so far as to poison her, how he had turned so bitter... Then she thinks; Luke wasn't bitter when I knew him, but it seems time has changed him. Time has not changed me.

"I'm sorry Thalia," Annabeth is close to tears, she doesn't want to believe it either, but the evidence is too much for the logical part of her brain to deny and she knows it is true. The boy next to her gets up and leaves leaving the two of them alone.

"Luke became bitter," Annabeth said. "I'm so sorry Thalia. I wouldn't have believed it either, but..." she bit her lip. "He's changed. He's not the Luke we knew."

"I know." Thalia said, and her voice is dry, and she feels like she's dreaming again, locked in the tree, and closed off from the outside world again. She wants to go back to her tree. Where she was oblivious and Luke wasn't evil and everything was okay and she was safe inside her case. Now she's free and this world isn't one she wanted to live in. More than ever she wished she could have slept for eternity and never woken up.

.

.

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_we just fight until we can't fight anymore_  
_and breathe until we can't breathe no more_  
_cheers, it's all over now_

_._

_._

_._

His body stumbles, then slips, and topples over the edge. She screamed. He fell.

Looking down that height is enough to make her nauseous, but looking down at his broken body laying on the rocks, dead or worse, her heart chips away and then breaks altogether. He's dead and she's the one who caused it. Luke is dead. Luke is evil but he's also dead and she's not sure which fact hurts her more.

So that's why when the goddess of the Hunt asks her boldly to join the hunt, run immortal, live without the reminder of men...she accepts the offer. There is nothing left for her to return to. Luke is gone. He is turned and possibly dead (?). Annabeth is...Annabeth is grown up, as much as she doesn't wish to admit it. She's got a mind of her own now, she can protect herself, Annabeth is not the little girl she found abandoned in the alley when she was seven years old. She's grown up and smart and beautiful and she doesn't need big sister Thalia anymore to look after her...she's got Percy for that. It didn't take a genius to see Percy cared a lot for Annabeth, and Thalia knew he would do everything to keep her safe. From all her years lost in the tree she'd forgotten how Annabeth would grow up too, and someday, she wouldn't need her big sister to care for her. She just realized it then, reality slapped her in the face and-

"Yes."

.

.

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_I'm falling, falling fast, falling slow and falling down_  
_I keep falling deeper and deeper into this dream I can't leave_  
_wake up, I say, but this nightmare won't go_  
_I've fallen out and you've fallen in  
fall with me, fall deep until we drown_

_._

_._

_._

It's not everyday a hunter dies. It is filled with mourning and a sharp sting for losing another sister or someone close, someone who watched your back and someone's back you used to watch. And usually the lieutenant wasn't the one to fall. Zoe Nightshade had been in lead since the beginning of the hunt, then Thalia, and now that was going to change again.

"Thalia," Phoebe cupped nectar from a canteen and Thalia coughed and pushed her away gently. "Thalia, please let me heal you."

"No," the daughter of Zeus said stubbornly. "Lady Artemis, did...did I make you proud?"

The goddess' eyes blinked quickly. "Yes, my brave lieutenant. Rest now."

"My brother..."

"He is safe," the goddess lied. Honestly, she had no idea what had become of Jupiter's child. He had passed away centuries ago, but Thalia seemed to have forgotten that. He was probably in Elysium, waiting for his sister to join him someday, along with their friends.

Thalia's eyes were starry. Most of the hunters had gathered around the fallen hunter, some with tears in their eyes, and others struggling to remain passive. A horn through her stomach and the beast that had taken her down meters away with a few stray arrows in the neck.

Thalia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Luke," she said with a sigh.

Then the brave daughter of Zeus faded into the stars.

.

.

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_sit down, let's talk now, this same sad old refrain  
it's been ages since we've said anything_  
_now I've grown and I don't know who you are_  
_anymore_  
_now it's time to go_  
_and I'm alone once again_

_._

_._

_._

He's dead and gone for rebirth, so why does she feel hopeful, as she walks into Elysium?

Jason is the first to greet her, talking happily to a girl with dark hair and dark eyes, who is trying her best not to smile. Off in the distance she sees Jason's friends, Leo and Piper having a picnic in the white fields. Her brother looks clean, unblemished, his usual scar over his lip vanished and wearing clean white clothes.

Thalia looked down and groaned inwardly, but she doesn't feel too bad about it. "White? Ugh. Figures I have to spend eternity wearing my least favorite color."

Her brother laughed and took her hand. "Thalia, I think you remember Reyna."

Thalia nodded. "Strangled some common sense into my brother, you did. Good job." The other girl hid a smile and said "Thanks" and then vanished.

Thalia blinked. "What the-"

"She's just visiting another place," Jason frowned. "This whole place is made of memories. Sometimes we get sucked into them, but we always come back. It's not a bad place really."

She doesn't try to feel hopeful but there's still a moment when the childlike question falls from her lips with anticipation she can't contain. "Is Luke here?"

Jason's smile vanished. "No." He sounds so sincere, and her empty heart feels a pang she doesn't ignore. "I'm sorry, Thalia."

"It's okay."

His smile grew back and he vanished too. Thalia closed her eyes and looked around. She knew he would never be here. He'd moved on, and so had she, but really...

She couldn't just forget Luke. Even as a hunter. She'd never forget how much he meant to her. And now he wasn't here...

Her soul felt free for the first time, untied to responsibility, not having to take care of Jason or Annabeth or Luke but she doesn't feel peace. She might be free but she'll never be a peace.

Luke isn't here and she knows that is her fault. He turned bitter because she was gone. She joined the hunt to forget him. He forged his path to take down Olympus and died trying to stop it. That is her fault too. Now he is gone for eternity and she's going to have to spend all that time without him.

There is another option...

No. She'd never find him there anyways. But she could forget. Be reborn. Try again.

Forget Jason, her little brother, and Annabeth, like her sister, and everyone she'd ever met...

"Rebirth," she decided, and then she was wiped clean.

.

.

.

_take me to paradise, it reminds me of you_  
_but it's different now, without you by my side_  
_we promised forever_  
_you promised never_  
_now I guess we're both to blame_  
_I promised the same_

.

.

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She might not remember who he is or anything about him, but for the first time in her life she felt clean and clear, a blank slate, because as long as Luke was a fallen shadow in her life she'd never be serene.

.

.

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_the future refuses to leave the past  
it's not any better when we left,  
the world is only gotten colder  
my heart has turned to stone  
I suppose that would be your fault  
now the stars are above me  
and I see clarity,  
serenity,  
at last_


End file.
